World writers demand UN charter to curb state surveillance

Nobel prize-winning author Gunter Grass reads his book of poems in Goettingen, on October 19, 2012

More than 500 authors, including J. M. Coetzee and Gunter Grass, have signed a petition to the United Nations published Tuesday which claims mass state surveillance is violating basic freedoms.

The signatories called for a new international bill of digital rights to curb what they claimed was the abuse of democracy through widespread Internet snooping.

The letter comes the day after eight leading US-based technology companies called on Washington to overhaul its surveillance laws following the recent revelations of online eavesdropping from fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

The Writers Against Mass Surveillance petition, signed by 562 authors from more than 80 countries, was published in around 30 newspapers worldwide, including The Guardian in Britain.

The signatories were led by five winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature: South African writer Coetzee, German novelist Grass, Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek, Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer and Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk.